Swarms of ladybugs have been appearing across homes and businesses in middle Tennessee and throughout the Midwest, parts of the Northeast and Canada, populations of the Asian Lady Beetle having skyrocketed this season due to "perfect weather conditions", NewsChannel5 reports.
While the multi-colored Asian Lady Beetles are not harmful to humans, they do create a nuisance for residents and emit a bizarre and distinct odor.
"We have perfect weather conditions, and a large food population," David Cook, an Entomologist and Davidson County Extension Agent, told NewsChannel5. "This is a perfect insect storm."
According to Cook, the best way to prevent the swarms from infesting your home or business is to keep all windows securely sealed, especially cracks and tears in screens while keeping siding in good repair, and to use a vaccuum cleaner to capture as many bugs as possible or spraying the infested area with insecticide.
As for how long the infestation of ladybugs will last, Cook explained that temperatures will have to change first.
"It will get worse before it gets better," he said. "We will need a couple of good, hard freezes to get rid of them."
"One reason I think we may be seeing more of them is that this summer was so cool and we had a lot more rain," Harvey Cotten of Huntsville Botanical Gardens told 48 News Waff. "We had a lot more foliage growing and we had a lot more bugs like aphids and other insects out there. They were the food source of these ladybugs and so they bred more."
Cook predicts that by next Fall, the ladybugs won't be as big, as the year after a major swarm they tend to decrease in population.
